STUDY: Your Employees Probably Don’t Like You

Don’t take it too personally, though: you’re definitely not the only one.

CreativeLive’s inaugural jobs report should probably serve as a wake-up call to your corporate clients. The basic conclusion: Americans aren’t happy at their jobs, and they don’t much care for their employers. The reason? They want to be more creative.

Some key numbers after the jump.

19% of employed Americans are working in jobs they took out of necessity, and the same number would prefer jobs in which they could feel more creative

In fact, 36% want to leave their current jobs for something more creative

29% would even take a pay cut to do so

Back to the point about your “corporate” clients:

40% of employed Americans want to jump off that big-name ship

This is even more true among Millennials:

They face a higher degree of underemployment (12%) than any other generation…

But a near-majority (47%) detest working in “corporate”

What do they want?

They want to work with other creative people (31%)

They want to feel like they’re making a positive social impact in their jobs (35%)

Now, our level of surprise at these findings is very close to zero. That said, we think you’ll agree that the survey strongly reinforces the fact that employee relations is absolutely critical to corporate reputation–especially among members of the younger generation.

Last week’s Weber Shandwick study positioned employees as your company’s most valuable brand ambassadors, and this one shows us that those potential assets are feeling a little underappreciated.

Maybe it’s time to take stock–for the good of both your clients and your agency.